Some Favourite Pilbara Patients

A green sea turtle was found looking a bit off colour by a local and brought into the clinic by fisheries officers. We spoke to the turtle experts and arranged for him to be shipped up to Broome, but he had to stay with us for a few days first. So we put him in our bathroom, apparently the best way to get fluid therapy into a salt water turtle is to put him in a fresh water bath and let osmosis do the work for you! It was a bit random taking a shower and brushing your teeth with a sea turtle watching you from the bathtub.

Turtles can't regulate their body temperature so they rely on the outer environment to maintain the right body temp. So, we had to refill the bath every 2 hours-ish to keep it warm enough for him.

I assumed turtles would breathe normally when they were above water... but he actually held his breath all the time, very rarely you'd hear him gasp as he changed breaths.

 

 The fluid therapy worked wonders.When he arrived on Monday, he was super flat and could barely lift his head. By Wednesday when he left, he put up a huge fight as the boys lifted him into the makeshift crate for his trip to Broome.

This female Eclectus parrot randomly landed on a guy's shoulder. He brought her into the clinic, we kept her until she was claimed. She was very tame. 

A goanna with a taste for Jack Daniels - I had to cut him out of his can as he was well and truly stuck! He is shedding too, you can see the colour change halfway down his body.

Arthur, the Olive Python: Some workers had noticed this snake sitting under a tree, not moving for a week. They notified the Department of Environment and Conservation, and the snake was brought into the vet clinic.
Olive pythons are harmless snakes (they could bite you if you really annoyed them) and are often discovered in chicken coops stealing eggs!

Arthur was severely dehydrated. We administered subcutaneous fluids in multiple places along his underside to rehydrate him over two days.

Last I heard, he was doing much better, and living in a terrarium at the Pilbara DEC office